The present invention relates to a device for the formation of sheets or groups of sheets, typically banknotes, into ordered stacks.
The present invention is employable to advantage in machines by which banknotes are ordered and wrapped in bundles, or groups of bundles, and indeed direct reference is made in the following specification to this same art field albeit with no limitation in general scope implied.
The prior art embraces machines designed to verify the quality and integrity of banknotes, consisting typically in a plurality of stacking modules or stations each equipped with a respective channel along which the stacks are formed. Each one of the single modules or stations is filled at its infeed end with a succession of single notes, which may be of any given type, whereupon these are examined, for example by optical means, and any defective items discarded; the good notes are then divided up according to denomination and/or type and directed toward respective independent outlets afforded by the stacking stations of the machine.
In this way, groups or stacks of single banknotes are formed at each of the outlets. Once a selected number of banknotes per group has accumulated, the resulting stack will be picked up and transferred to a bundling machine by which it is bound with at least one wrapping band.
Alternatively, the machines in question can be supplied at the infeed end of each stacking station with a succession of bundles, that is to say sheets already checked and bound with respective wrapping bands, in such a way that the banknotes collecting at the outlets of the single stations consist not in stacks of discrete notes, but rather in stacks of bundled notes that are then picked up manually and transferred elsewhere.
The object of the present invention is to set forth a device such as will improve the process whereby sheets, in particular banknotes emerging from a checking machine, are formed into ordered stacks; in particular, increasing the productivity of the process and refining the manner in which the stacks are picked up and transferred.
A further object of the present invention is to provide a method whereby stacks of single sheets and stacks of previously bundled sheets can be assembled and transferred automatically and with equal ease.